


hunters seeking solid ground

by laramara



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-08 23:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18904933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laramara/pseuds/laramara
Summary: In the wake of the battle with Thanos, Steve feels unmoored in a way he hasn’t since before he ate shawarma with a group of virtual strangers and thought maybe,maybehe could one day find a place here.Steve returns the stones, and has a few unexpected interactions and makes some decisions along the way.





	hunters seeking solid ground

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t quite know how to explain this because I haven’t been able to write anything in forever but then endgame happened and I ended up bleeding my feelings all over the page. please excuse my handwavey understanding of m&m’s time travel explanation. It’s all a bit jeremy bearimy to me.
> 
> thanks to [mizzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy) for the beta, you helped me make my word vomit coherent and bring some order to the commas that wanted to take over the whole thing.
> 
> the title is from Sara Bareilles’ ‘orpheus’ which was on repeat while i was writing this.

The first time Steve looks over his shoulder for no discernible reason is when the battle is won and the dust of Thanos’ army has settled. Somebody, and Steve isn’t even sure who, asks, “Now what?” and Steve looks over his shoulder. His search gives way to confusion because there isn’t anybody there, but he soldiers on. “We rebuild,” he answers.

The second time is when he tells Bruce, “No, you stay here, I’ll return the stones.” He looks back, and…nothing.

“Steve,” Bruce asks, “you feeling all right?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he plasters a fake smile on his face and hopes Bruce can’t tell. “You operate the Quantum Tunnel. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“If you’re sure, Cap,” Bruce replies, something uncertain flickering behind his eyes, but Steve knows he isn’t the only one hiding behind a veneer of _smile and push through_ so he lets it be, and that’s that.

The decision is an easy one to make because Steve has felt adrift since the battle, the links in the chain anchoring him stretched thin, cracking. He thinks that maybe this will give him a goal, something he can accomplish, instead of standing back, powerless, while...Steve exhales a deep breath, “I’m sure.”

The compound is being rebuilt. “Tony would’ve wanted you to have your home back,” Pepper tells him as she signs off on the construction, her hand shaking with the faintest tremor when she says his name.

At first he wonders if, with Tony and Nat…gone, anyone would really care enough to bother trying to hold them together. But Danvers offers to stick around a while, and she and Sam have developed a rapport and are managing the team—for anyone who’s interested in being part of it, anyway. They’d both approached him, assuming he’d be staying on, leading, but Steve feels unmoored in a way he hasn’t since before he ate shawarma with a group of virtual strangers and thought maybe, _maybe_ he could one day find a place here.

That place is gone now.

The day finally comes and he meets Bruce, Sam and Bucky by the lake, near the spot where they grieved for Natasha, and it feels right that this is where he’ll say goodbye.

“I miss them too,” he tells Bruce, but he’s been clamping down on everything that’s been threatening to spill forth for days now, and he can’t let it shake loose now.

He says goodbye to Sam, and turns to Bucky, falling into a well-rehearsed exchange, _“Don’t do anything stupid till I get back.” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,”_ that feels like it belongs to two people who aren’t them anymore.

He picks up Mjölnir and the stone case and leaves what little is left of his life behind.

**

He’s spent five years telling other people about the importance of moving on, but he’s never been anything but a hypocrite. He’s been running from the idea of moving on for far longer than five years, and now…

He feels Nat’s loss like a missing limb. She’d been there, a steadfast presence through the worst and best of it from the first time he set foot on the helicarrier, his loneliness tearing through his insides with teeth. She’d staunched the bleeding, tended the wounds, rebandaged them when the thing with teeth reawakened and gnawed at him again. He wishes he’d told her how important she was, how she kept him sane, kept him whole, that she was his family too.

**

On Morag, he steps past the unconscious body of Peter Quill to leave the power stone, and feels something prickle across the back of his neck but there’s nothing there.

On Asgard, he marvels at the towering golden palace, feels a pang at the realisation that all this beauty and grandeur no longer exists in his time, and (apologetically) injects the aether into an unsuspecting Jane Foster in her sleep.

As he slips out of the room, he comes face to face with an elegant blonde woman with kind eyes and a regal bearing. Steve braces for the possibility that he may have to make a run for it, but—

“You must be one of Thor’s friends,” she says, and oh, Steve realises, _oh_ , this must be Thor’s mother.

“Steve Rogers, ma’am,” he says, feeling awkward and unsure about what the protocol is when meeting the Queen of Asgard. His hand twitches uncertainly at his side, as she appraises him with eyes that seem far older than the face they’re set in, but Steve knows Asgardians don’t age as humans do, so he could never be certain as to how old she actually is. She has a 1500-year-old son, after all.

“Has the stone been returned?” She asks, eyes flicking to the injector he still has gripped in his hand.

“Yes, I…put it back…in Jane. She’ll be okay, won’t she?”

“Something tells me you know more about what will happen than I do,” her eyes are bright and there’s a small smile on her face, and Steve feels his face flame.

“She’ll be fine,” he says, resolute.

“Oh, here,” Steve says, pushing Mjölnir towards her. “I’m pretty sure this belongs to your Thor. I mean, they’re all _your_ Thor, but, I mean, the one from this time,” Steve says, suddenly unsure if she can even take it from him or if he should put it down. While the years have made him much more comfortable speaking to women, now he feels tongue-tied and wrong-footed, something about Thor’s mother’s gaze piercing straight through to the heart of him.

“You’re carrying a heavy burden,” she says, completely derailing the thoughts spiraling through his head. “You have suffered terrible loss for one so young.”

“We won the battle, the reason we needed the stones, but my friends…they died.”

A furrow appears in her brow, “And you feel it was your fault?”

The weight that Steve has been straining to bear suddenly feels insurmountable. He hangs his head.

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be holding that right now,” she says, tilting her head towards the hammer still held in Steve’s hand, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.

“I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“But it is. Loss is not something to fear, child. Your friends, did they not choose to go into battle knowing this may happen?”

“Yes, but I should’ve—”

“Then you must allow them the dignity of that choice,” and suddenly Steve is no longer speaking to a dead queen in an alien world, but sitting in the bombed out remains of the Whip & Fiddle in a devastated corner of London, trying desperately to get drunk, and Peggy is telling him to _allow Barnes the dignity of his choice, he damn well must have thought you were worth it_ , and Steve wants to scream.

“Perhaps you will soon have to make some choices of your own,” she says cryptically. “You look tired,” and there’s a hand coming to rest on his cheek. _You have no idea_ , Steve wants to say but holds back. “You should rest, I’ll show you a chamber you can stay in,” she says, turning away and expecting him to follow.

“I really should keep going,” but he’s sensing his odds of escape dwindling in the face of a woman who he imagines tends to get what she wants.

“Nonsense, you can leave in the morning.” It’s a tone that brooks no argument, one that Steve remembers well from his teenage years, and there may as well be another blonde woman standing in Frigga’s place, her hands on her hips as she stares Steve down like he still weighs ninety five pounds soaking wet.

“Okay.”

**

He hasn’t slept much since the battle and succumbs to his exhaustion as soon as his head hits the pillow, but as much as he runs from that day in his waking hours, it’s much harder to escape the memories in sleep.

Tony, the infinity stones snapping into place on his gauntlet.

The strangled little _no_ that punched out of Steve’s chest.

Arms wrapping around him like vibranium bands as he leapt forward. Tony _Tony_ TONY.

“Fuck _fuck!_ Thor, let me go.”

“There’s nothing you can do, Steve. It’s already too late”

_“And I…am…”_

Steve reaches with an arm and Mjölnir is flying towards him because he has to get away from Thor, he has to get to Tony, but Thor snatches it out of the air, dropping it to his side.

_“Iron Man.”_

Steve throws his elbow and hears the faint hiss of air leaving Thor’s chest but the pressure doesn’t abate.

The snap of Tony’s fingers.

Oh god, _Tony._

The endless seconds that follow as Thanos’ army turns to dust.

Falling at Tony’s side when it was already too late. “Tony, please, _please_ stay with me.”

Steve wakes with a strangled gasp, his heart hammering in his ears. Even awake, with the sounds of the battlefield and the taste of blood in his mouth fading, Steve can feel the earth beneath his knees and the solidity of Iron Man beneath his hands.

But the memories aren’t real, only imagined ones that his brain had conjured after the fact, to torture him with his failure. The truth is that Steve had kept his distance, watching Pepper and Rhodey and Peter cry over Tony while Steve stood frozen, because no matter how Steve (now realises he) felt, Tony was never his to keep and he could never be enough to hold him in the world.

**

After Steve looks over his shoulder a few more times – in confusion, fear, indecision – he realises he’s looking for a reaction from somebody who isn’t there.

**

If Nat’s loss is like a missing limb, Tony’s loss is something he can feel right down in his blood, something essential that’s been torn from his body. The thing with teeth has woken and ripped through everything in its path, leaving a gaping chasm in Steve’s chest.

Even after the disaster of the Accords, when he and Tony hadn’t been on speaking terms, Steve had somehow reassured himself with the knowledge that Tony was only a phone call away; whether Tony would have spoken to him or not seemed so much less important than the knowledge that he was still out there, breathing, whole.

Some days when he closes his eyes he sees Tony as he was when he returned from Titan, all jagged edges, beaten and broken because Steve had failed him. _I needed you_ , the phantom tells him.

_No trust. Liar._

On others he sees Tony as he was on the battlefield, watches his body crumble away into dust and scatter in the wind.

Steve’s feelings for Tony have always been a complicated snarl of emotions that, when unwound, lead to something elusive that slips out of his grasp as he reaches for it.

Tony’s absence feels like a hole has been carved into the world, and Steve is fighting to keep from sliding into the abyss he’s left behind.

**

On Vormir the cold bites at his skin and steals the very air from his lungs.

The sky overhead is a blend of purples and blues, trapped in perpetual dusk. Not a single structure – man-made or otherwise, stands in obstruction to the vast, barren landscape. It’s almost peaceful in its tranquility.

By the time he makes it to the top of the mountain, the chill hasn’t abated despite the pleasant ache in his muscles. It takes him a moment to notice the dark, floating figure in the shadows.

“Welcome, Steven, son of Sarah, have you come to torment me in my solitude?”

And Steve, he knows that voice, has heard it repeated over and over in his head as the years have gone by, taunting, “ _You are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind,_ ” and sometimes, in his darkest moments, Steve has wondered if maybe it was true.

His legs eat up the space between them and Steve’s hand is wrapped around the Red Skull’s neck.

“What are you doing here?” he bites, grip tightening.

Up close, Red Skull’s face hasn’t changed, despite the almost seventy years since the last time Steve has seen him, but then, Steve supposes, he hasn’t changed much either. On the outside at least.

There’s no fear or worry in Schmidt’s face, only something assessing as he looks at Steve, something that sees far too much. His eyes drift, covetous, towards the case that Steve dropped in his haste.

“I see you have the stones. Tell me, was it worth it? Your friend’s sacrifice?”

“Why did you take Natasha?”

“I did nothing. The soul holds a special place among the infinity stones, it demands a sacrifice. A soul for a soul. Your friends, they fought. Natasha won, or should I say…she lost.”

Steve feels the now all too familiar burn in his eyes as he remembers Nat’s excitement as the teams set out in search of the stones. The hope that Steve had watched dwindle over the past five years, lost to anger and despair, finally rekindled with the possibility of a better future. _See you in a minute._

“I wonder, Steven, could you have made the same choice?”

Since then he’s wondered again and again, what if they’d sent another team to Vormir? A team without two people who loved each other, what then? If Nebula and Rhodey had gone, would they have returned empty-handed, or is there a loophole? Another way to get the stone that doesn’t require death. How much do they trust the Red Skull was telling the truth? Occasionally those thoughts take another turn, a quiet voice in the back of his head asking, what if he and Tony had been the ones to go after the soul stone? Steve would have happily given his life, but it wouldn’t have worked, because Tony never loved him. Or would it have worked? It is only about sacrifice? Does love really need to be a factor? Somehow he knows that Tony would’ve fought to be the one to sacrifice himself too, and Steve knows that would’ve worked, but he doesn’t know how he would’ve walked away afterwards.

Before he’s even had a chance to consider the question, something shifts in the air and Steve is left grasping at smoke, the Red Skull insubstantial when he reappears before Steve.

“But then, something tells me you have already lost the thing that you love.”

Refusing to rise to the bait, Steve stalks over and opens the case to reveal the four remaining stones, glinting in the darkness. He fights to regain control of the tenuous grip he has on his emotions.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Steve asks, holding the soul stone. “If I return it, do I get Nat back?”

“Don’t be a fool. There is no returning from a death caused by the stones.” Steve shoots him an unimpressed look. “A real death. I was merely transported. Your friends, they have been taken. This power is not for mortal men. It extracts a price.”

Of course, it was a long shot and he wasn’t expecting it’d be that easy, but he’s still taken aback by how much it hurts to hear.

“You should respect your friends’ choice,” Schmidt says, with what is definitely an undue amount of glee, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing that,” Steve says, and throws the stone as hard as he can, out over the edge of the cliff.

**

He’s barely holding it together after the confrontation with Schmidt, and only three stones remain.

Before he’s quite thought through the potential consequences of his actions—and Steve is self-aware enough to know that this is definitely one of his failings—Steve has plugged a date in, made a quantum jump, and he’s watching himself and Tony— _living, breathing_ Tony from only a few days ago, walk across Camp Lehigh with no knowledge that in such a short time Tony will be—

He ducks behind a pile of supplies as he watches his younger self—and though it’s been only a few days and it seems ridiculous to think of this Steve as younger in any meaningful way, Steve feels infinitely older than he did when he was walking around this camp, tentatively hopeful of what the future might bring—turn around.

He watches from his limited vantage point, breath caught in his throat as the other Steve’s eyes flick over his hiding place, returning to focus on their next step only when Tony says something to him. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. If there’s one thing he’s sure of this time around, it’s that he needs to not let his younger self see him. He tells himself bullshit excuses, that the temptation to warn him, to tell him what’s to come, will be too much; that he’s there to return the space stone, and nothing else. In and out. Focus on the mission.

He knows he’s barely skirting around the truth, that the best way to avoid himself is to be where Tony is. No, where the stone needs to be returned to. He needs to wait for Tony to take the tesseract and then go in and return it. Easy. In and out.

A quickly borrowed uniform later, he watches himself and Tony as they get into the elevator, thinks about the sensation of Tony’s arm brushing against his as he shifts his body to hide Steve from the too inquisitive, evaluating eyes of the Shield employee in the confined space with them. Thinks about what he might do if he were in his younger self’s shoes now. If no one else was in the elevator with them. But that’s useless now, letting himself linger on _ifs_ and _should haves._

Casually strolling across the base, he slips into the elevator and heads for the lab.

Rounding the corner, Steve hears “back in the game!” and promptly walks into an office chair. He flinches, and Tony turns to him, eyes widening.

“Steve! What the hell are you doing here?” Tony hisses, cube momentarily forgotten. “Pretty sure I don’t need your help with this. Unless you don’t actually trust me to get it done.” There’s an undercurrent of hurt there in his voice, and Steve knows he wouldn’t have even noticed it before, if things had been different, if he hadn’t spent every moment since Tony walked back into his life, cataloguing every inflection in his face and his voice, determined to never take him for granted and repeat the same mistakes he’d made before.

Tony has always taken up so much space, the air seeming to warp around him, pulling people into his orbit. Steve had always fought the instinctive pull, trying to protect himself from the gravity of Tony Stark, because something about it told him that if he let himself get pulled in, he’d never escape again.

With his cover blown—as if there was any doubt it would be—Steve stops fighting. Stops trying to pretend that he isn’t desperate to be in Tony Stark’s orbit.

Before he knows it he’s crossed the space between them and has pulled Tony into his arms. Tony, obviously not expecting the sudden physical affection that had never been a part of their relationship, stiffens, and Steve is caught off guard by the hands that he’d lifted in—what? Fear? And that makes Steve drop his arms, ready to lurch back because this had been a mistake and _fuck_ what was he thinking? There’s a reason he had never initiated any kind of physical contact between them after what he’d done, how he’d _hurt Tony_ in Siberia. “Oh, God, Tony, I’m so sorry,” he manages to stutter out when he feels hands grasping at his uniform.

“Hey, Steve, no, it’s okay,” Tony says, holding Steve in place, his movement arrested with Tony still close and soft and warm in front of him. “You just surprised me, is all, look it’s fine,” Tony says, and Steve can’t believe it when he tugs Steve forward again, wrapping his arms around him. “I was just kidding about you not trusting me to get this done,” he says, and there’s still a question there, “I mean, no big deal, right?”

“I’m sorry I ever made you think I didn’t trust you, Tony. It was never about that. And I do trust you. I trust you with my life.” Steve is breathing the words into the shoulder of Tony’s borrowed lab coat, and he knows this is too much, that there’s no way Tony won’t mention this to the other Steve and this is going to be impossible, and Steve has made a mistake but he just _doesn’t care_ because he’s holding on to Tony and Tony is holding him back and he’s so alive. Steve is on the verge of something that might be a breakdown, but there’s no way he could ever explain that to Tony if he starts sobbing all over him, but there’s something else that’s building inside his chest, something terrifying, and Steve doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to hold it back as his body shakes in Tony’s arms.

“Steve? Are you – what’s wrong?” Tony is patting at his arms and trying to push Steve away to look into his eyes and it’s only the surprise of having Tony’s hands on his face that forces Steve to straighten. When he looks up, it’s to find Tony looking at him, eyes wide with concern, and hands soft on Steve’s cheeks, like Steve is something delicate, and Steve knows he doesn’t deserve this, but he’s missed too many opportunities. The thought of walking away from Tony right now cracks something open inside him, so Steve pushes forward, aware of Tony’s eyes widening, and kisses him.

There’s an interminable moment where time seems to freeze and everything else fades into the background, leaving Steve aware of nothing but the light scratch of Tony’s facial hair against his face, the dryness of both their lips, the wide-eyed surprise in Tony’s eyes, the stutter of Tony’s breath in his chest where it’s pressed against Steve’s where his own heart feels like it’s about to burst clean out of his ribs. The awareness that Tony isn’t kissing him back has him clenching his eyes shut in mortification and pulling away, ready to apologise, to beg forgiveness when, for a second time, Tony grasps onto him, hands slipping onto the back of Steve’s neck and fingers threading into the hair there.

“No, wait,” Tony whispers, breath feather-light over Steve’s lips, “you caught me off guard. Just wait.” And it’s the gentle grasp of Tony’s fingers, and the lack of hatred in his eyes, that has Steve stalling his movements.

“Arnim, you in there?”

Shit. How did Steve not realise that this is where Tony ran into his father? He watches the surprise steal over Tony’s face as he recognises the voice calling out, and Steve knows who it is that Howard’s looking for, and he feels a frisson of anger rattle through him. So this is it, Operation Paperclip.

“Arnim?”

But Steve doesn’t have time to deal with this now, he looks over and Howard is looking the other way for the moment, but he won’t be for long. He uses the grasp he has on Tony’s hips, lifting him and spinning them both around the corner so they’re hidden behind the safe the cube is still sitting in, and Steve hopes Howard doesn’t notice that the door is ajar, the faint blue glow of the tesseract bleeding into the room.

Steve is so focused on paying attention to Howard and the sound of his footsteps coming closer that it takes him a moment to realise that, in his attempt to shield Tony with his body—even though Steve’s the one who needs to avoid being seen and recognised—he’s pushed Tony tight against the wall, and he can feel the length of their bodies pressed together.

His body is still thrumming with adrenaline, and the realisation that he’s made too many mistakes already, and that everything could go wrong here, is building into a shudder that Steve is horrified to realise Tony can feel everywhere their bodies are touching.

“Shh,” Tony whispers, his forehead soft against the side of Steve’s face, and breath ghosting against his ear. “It’s going to be fine, just breathe, a few deep breaths,” Tony says, and while Steve comes back into an awareness of his body, and the sound of Howard’s receding footsteps, the awareness also brings with it a renewed sense of every part of Tony’s body that is currently pushed against his, from knees to chests. The pulse that tingles through him this time is definitely not anger or fear or adrenaline, but something much bigger, so big it feels ready to claw its way out of his chest and swallow the world whole.

He can feel Tony’s scrutiny on him again, and the realisation that he kissed Tony sinks in. _Of course_ Tony wouldn’t kiss him back, because of their messy history and _oh God, Pepper_ , and Steve wishes he’d never been so stupid, because now he has the memory of Tony’s mouth against his, and he doesn’t know how he’ll go on knowing this is it, this was his one shot and he ruined it.

But there’s something there, in Tony’s gaze, and when the hands on the back of his neck,slide gently into his hair, the pressure barely there, giving Steve an out if he wants it, as if he ever would, it’s the easiest thing in the world to tip his head forward back to meet Tony’s.

This kiss is nothing like the last.

Tony’s mouth is hot and demanding against Steve’s, and Steve is willing to let Tony take and take and take because that’s what he deserves, and Steve is more than happy to give him anything, everything, he wants.

When Tony licks inside his mouth, hands now on Steve’s sides, insistently pulling him impossibly closer, Steve feels need and desperation pooling low in his body. His body is quickly learning the feel of Tony’s against it and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when it’s taken away again.

“Shit, Steve, when did you—why did you—? ” Tony’s asking, mouth detaching itself from Steve’s between kisses, and Steve thinks he must be doing something wrong if Tony is still mostly forming sentences because Steve’s brain can’t seem to catch up, there’s so much to kiss, see, feel. Too much. But he shouldn’t be surprised that Tony’s mind can handle a whole lot more than Steve’s. Maybe he’ll have to try harder.

Steve doesn’t second guess himself as his hands, still on Tony’s hips, slip further around his back, and skirt down the swell of Tony’s ass and lift, pushing him back into the wall. The faint sound of surprise Tony makes into Steve’s mouth turns to a moan and when Tony wraps his legs around Steve, his answering groan reverberates back into Tony’s.

With the change of angle, Steve’s aware of the insistent press of Tony’s cock where it’s trapped between their bodies, and before he’s caught his breath, Tony’s hands are deftly pulling Steve’s shirt out from where it’s tucked into his pants, undoing a few buttons, only to be met with the white undershirt Steve has on. “God, why are you wearing so many layers?” Tony asks, pushing until his hands are splayed across Steve’s abs, which twitch at the sudden shock. All Steve wants is to push all of Tony’s clothes out of the way, get his hands on as much skin as he can, but there simply isn’t the time.

He’s dimly aware of his hands clenching and unclenching, high on Tony’s thighs, where they’re still holding him aloft.

“What do you think, Cap?” Tony breathes, eyes mischievous and voice gravelly in a way that shoots straight to Steve’s cock. “Gonna get your revenge and tell me these pants aren’t doing anything for my ass?” He chuckles, Steve’s answer already a foregone conclusion, but it gives Steve a second to catch his breath.

“Don’t think there’s such thing, Tony,” Steve says, crowding Tony even closer against the wall, pushing his thigh between his legs to brace him there while Steve’s hands grow bolder, undoing Tony’s slacks and slipping beneath the waistband over the warm skin of his ass. In response, Tony’s hips thrust forward, grinding against Steve’s thigh with a groan. Steve can’t help himself, and leans back in to kiss Tony hungrily, aware of an insistent tug against his waistband, fingers undoing the button and pulling down the fly to—“Shit,” he gasps into Tony’s mouth as a hand, _Tony’s hand_ , wraps around his cock.

Mechanic’s hands, covered in callouses and scars, work roughly against the length of Steve’s cock and Steve doesn’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but Tony is so confident in his body, in Steve’s reaction to what he’s doing. He’s watching Steve with the kind of certainty that _zings_ through Steve, and he didn’t think he could get any harder than he already was, but he can feel his cock swelling in Tony’s hand.

“I’m—Tony, I—” He can’t seem to get the words out, his body yearning for it to end, for more of it, for anything Tony will give him.

“You know, I’ve had this dream a few times but the reality is so much better.” Tony’s words are a breathy murmur against Steve’s ear and while the words make Steve feel like there’s an electric current thrumming below his skin, Tony sounds far too coherent.

Steve shifts his grip slightly, one hand slipping around the curve of Tony’s ass, and now Tony is grinding against Steve in uneven, frantic movements while Steve’s other hand goes to work on finishing the job of getting Tony’s pants open. Steve can feel Tony’s own erection straining against the fabric of his slacks, and when he gets his own hand around it, giving it a sharp tug, the breath punches out of Tony and the hand he has on Steve stutters in its rhythm.

Steve grins in triumph for a moment, jacking his hand hard and fast, and their lips are pressed together, more gasping breaths into each other’s mouths than kissing. Steve knows he isn’t going to last much longer, and if the way Tony is grinding down on the hand still on his ass and thrusting into his hand is any indication, he isn’t either.

“Oh God, I can’t wait to get this inside me next time,” Tony says, and between that, and the skilled twist of Tony’s hand, Steve shudders through his release and Tony follows.

As he’s trying to catch his breath, Steve’s knees finally give out and he lowers them to the floor, Tony ending up in his lap, his weight a grounding comfort for Steve’s over-stimulated body.

“I can’t believe we just rubbed each other off against a wall like a couple of teenagers hiding from their parents,” and suddenly Tony is laughing, his body languid and loose as it shakes against Steve’s. “Oh God, we were hiding from _my dad_ ,” and his mirth catches Steve, dragging him along in its wake as he chuckles helplessly.

The moment passes, but the ease between them hasn’t yet shifted into what Steve is sure is going to be regret and accusation. For now, he can feel the warm press of Tony’s open mouth on this skin of his neck, and the sharp nip of his teeth on the skin there, and he doesn’t want to shatter this. He wants to hold onto it and never let go.

“Let’s get back and kick Thanos’ ass, and then we’re doing that properly, in a bed,” Tony says, tongue playing over the skin he’s just worried.

And it shatters.

Steve’s mind fractures and the warm, vibrant body in his arms is suddenly replaced with his last sight of Tony on the battlefield, the right side of his face burned, his body struggling to draw in enough air, FRIDAY’s voice saying “life functions critical”. And there’s something new working its way through his body, a sob building, and before he can rein it in it shudders out of him as buries his head into Tony’s shoulder and gasps wetly.

“Steve?” Tony’s hand is rubbing on his shoulder, his touch firm and sure. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Since the serum, Steve rarely finds himself out of breath, his endurance often feels endless, but right now there isn’t enough oxygen in the room as he fights to get his breathing under control.

“Steve, you’re scaring me, I need you to ease up for a minute,” Tony’s voice has a slight hitch in it and that more than anything has Steve dropping his arms and scooting backwards because the thought that he’s hurt Tony again is enough to bring him right back into the moment.

“Wait, wait, it’s okay,” Tony says, arm outstretched like Steve is a wounded animal he’s trying to calm. There’s something ridiculous about the image too, They must look quite the pair right now, clothes rumpled with their pants open and come staining their clothes, and Steve can feel the certainty that this is the last time he’ll ever see Tony washing over him, and it’s terrifying.

“Steve, I think you’re having a panic attack, I need you to breathe with me. Whatever it is, we can work through it, just breathe,” Tony says, scooting over to Steve’s side and laying a hand against Steve’s chest, telegraphing the movement as he does it, and Steve, he crumples, folding forward, sobs he can’t hold in anymore, ones he’d felt building, desperate to come out when he’d seen Tony’s body lying unresponsive on the earth, cracking through his chest.

He feels a warm weight drape across his back, and _god_ , Tony shouldn’t be the one comforting him, but he can feel the flutter of Tony’s heart against his back, the rise and fall of his chest, the strength of his arms, determined to hold Steve together even as he shakes apart.

“What is it, Steve? Come on, talk to me. Is this about Pepper? Because we’re not—” Steve exhales a breath that sounds like a scoff, because he saw Tony when he was at home by the lake, saw Pepper crying over his dying, broken body.

“We were, before, but then Morgan was born and somewhere along the way it stopped working. That way, anyway. Never did have the best track record, and I love her, I probably always will, but I only stayed for Morgan, because that little girl’s the most important thing in my life, and if living with her mom is going to give her some stability, a real family, then that’s…I can give her that.”

And that might actually be worse, because that means that Steve hadn’t needed to keep his distance or fight the feeling that had come bubbling up his chest when Tony turned up with a solution to all their problems and Steve’s shield stashed in the trunk of his car after everything Steve had done to prove he didn’t deserve it.

“Please don’t go,” Steve gasps and it’s stupid, so stupid, because this is Tony he’s talking to.

“Go? What are you talking about, Steve? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” Tony’s voice is a soft rumble against his body and Steve thinks, _if only that were true._

But, what if it can be?

From what Steve understands of this whole time travel thing, telling this Tony anything won’t change anything for his Tony. No matter how much he wishes it would, but that doesn’t mean that this Tony has to die. The universe has already exacted its price, and as far as Steve is concerned even one Tony Stark is far too high a price, why should it get two?

“Not if I can help it,” and Steve knows it’s probably a colossal, stupid mistake, knows that if his Tony were here he would say something like, _can’t change it, it was my time to go, Cap_ or _don’t take away the one good thing I ever did_ (regardless of how untrue), or something equally self-sacrificing and heroic, but Steve can’t—won’t—let it happen again.

“I’m not the Steve you arrived with,” he says, and he tells Tony everything.

**

“So the one in 14,000,605 futures that Strange saw, the only way we succeed is through my death,” Tony says, voice typically glib in the face of bad news, but there’s something there, an undercurrent that becomes more pronounced when he takes a shaky breath in. “Right. That’s that then. Man, I guess that’s what he was apologising for when he said it was the only way to win.”

“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Tony? You can’t. We have to find another way.”

“It doesn’t sound like we have much choice, Steve,” Tony says, hand warm and heavy on Steve’s neck, grounding as he thumb sweeps back and forth.

“No,” Steve says, shaking off the lingering choking despair and willing his conviction into the warm brown eyes staring into his with a mix of fear and trust. “You’re not going to die.”

“I don’t think even you can fight destiny Steve, if dying is the only way…”

“Who’s dying?” The voice is Steve’s but the words don’t come from his mouth.

Both Steve and Tony whip around to find Steve, this Tony’s Steve—and damn if that doesn’t shoot a flare of bitterness and irrational jealousy, that he still has a Tony to take home with him, nevermind that Steve had that same Tony’s mouth panting against his not too long ago—standing in the doorway, arms crossed and looking distinctly unimpressed at Steve’s presence.

“Are you returning the stones?” he asks, stepping further into the room, eyes assessing the way Steve and Tony are positioned, still very close together, on the lab floor, and Steve is thankful that they’d straightened up their appearances as best they could, though neither of them is likely to stand up to much scrutiny. Unfortunately, if the way his past self has zeroed in on their hair is any indication, they’d already failed.

“Does that mean we won?”

“I came to warn Tony about something,” Steve says, carefully avoiding the question and rising to his feet, reaching a hand out to pull Tony up. If Steve holds Tony’s hand for longer than strictly necessary, no one says anything.

“Don’t you think you should tell us both?” he asks, and Steve thinks, what further harm could it do at this point?

“Thanos is coming. From 2014. We were betrayed, the Nebula that returns from Morag is not the one who left with Rhodey, Nat—” Here his breath hitches again. “Nat won’t make it back,” he told Tony the same thing only moments ago but he can’t stop the air catching in his lungs, and watches his past self recoil as if hit. “There’s a battle. Tony—”

The man in question puts a restraining hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Steve, I don’t think you should,” Tony says, but Steve brushes him off, because he won’t let Tony do this alone. Maybe together they can find another way.

“Tony uses the gauntlet to wipe out Thanos’ army. It kills him.” At this, his counterpart sucks in a breath.

“Steve, if this is the only way...” Tony says, already resigned, and god, _god_ , Steve doesn’t think he can do this.

“It could have been anyone, Tony!” he snaps, and watches Tony rear back as if hit. “Almost every other member of the team had— _has_ a better shot of survival, why does it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry you’ve felt the need to lie down on the goddamn wire every time since the moment we first met, I was wrong, just don’t do this again.”

For years, since he woke up in an unknown future with nothing and no one, Steve has been trying so hard to avoid bleeding on people. He keeps everything in, bottles it up and locks it away. But now it’s coming out in a torrent, and it might just drown all of them.

Steve is aware of his counterpart’s eyes on him, watching what Tony’s death will do to him in such a short time; conscious of Tony, watching him tear pieces of himself away to leave them lying in a heap, leaving him nothing more than a mess of bones and nerves that have been scraped raw.

“I couldn’t save you. Not when you faced Thanos on a planet so far from home, God, Tony, I couldn’t even do it when I was standing on the same goddamn battlefield. I was _right there_. What is even the point of all this, if I just keep failing the people I—”

He clenches his eyes shut, feeling like he might be about to vibrate out of his skin. There are hands resting against his jaw, soft like he might break. “Steve, hey,” Tony says, and Steve’s breath shudders out of him. “We’ll fix it. I’ll let someone else use the stones, I swear.” Tony is trying, saying what he thinks Steve wants to hear and that, more than anything, is what makes Steve realise how pointless all of this is.

“It’s been eleven years,” he huffs, shifting his head to press his lips to the palm of Tony’s hand. Tony’s expression turns soft, and desperately sad. “Don’t you think it’s time we finally stopped lying to each other?”

Tony chuckles, head dipping in a bow, and Steve forces himself to step away, to separate himself from Tony’s gravitational pull. His mostly-silent double watches them with an awareness that this moment isn’t for him.

“What will you do now?” Tony asks, eyes flicking back to the case of stones Steve still has to deliver, but Steve doesn’t think that’s what Tony’s really asking.

Steve flicks the case open to pick up the space stone, then swaps it with the tesseract still in the safe. With a deep breath, he hands it to Tony, who is ready and waiting with a gauntlet covering his bare skin. Steve closes Tony’s fingers over the cube with a heavy heart.

“Only one stop left on the tour,” Tony says, gesturing to the mind and time stones still sitting in the case. Steve nods.

Steve turns and walks away, not letting himself look back at Tony holding his destruction in the palm of his hand. As he walks by his younger self, Steve puts a firm hand on his shoulder.

“He isn’t with Pepper. Don’t make my mistakes,” Steve takes a deep breath in. “And keep him safe,” and then he isn’t there anymore.

**

“You’re on the brink of a decision that is not yours to make. You shouldn’t do this, Captain,” the Ancient One tells him, as she gratefully takes the time stone from him. _Shouldn’t_ not _mustn’t_. Not _can’t_.

“We’ve already changed this timeline, haven’t we?” Steve asks, a bit desperately. “Loki got away with the tesseract, things have already changed.” Then more resolute, “I’m not asking your permission. I’m not here to make anything worse, I’m here to help, so this timeline doesn’t go through what mine did.”

She looks at him, expression cryptic, and he can’t seem to read her at all before she comes to a decision. “Very well, but remember, time is a tricky thing. I hope your goal is as straightforward as you think it is. Sometimes things are meant to happen the way they do.”

**

Back in the tower, Steve waits for his younger self to wake from his scepter-induced slumber.

Having made his decision, Steve could put his plan into motion while his counterpart is still unconscious, but Steve knows he’d want to be given the option, and while he isn’t sure what he’ll do if he doesn’t receive the answer he’s looking for. That’s a bridge he’ll have to cross when he gets to it. It’s about trusting that he knows what the unconscious man wants more than anything else, and trusting his _unique_ insight into the situation.

Taking a moment, Steve looks up into the depths of what is still Stark Tower and lets himself breathe. Hopefully JARVIS is still disabled—Tony had worried about the AI’s response at seeing two versions of them in the tower—because Steve isn’t sure he wants anyone to know what he’s about to do. He doesn’t know how he’d explain it if they did.

A pained groan sounds from somewhere near Steve’s feet and he looks down to find the younger man waking. His eyes widen when he sees Steve, and he rolls away, springing to his feet.

“Loki!” he says, fists coming up, ready to charge Steve again.

“Wait, just hear me out,” Steve says, arms outstretched, trying to make himself as non-threatening as possible. He watches, surprised, as the other Steve relaxes his stance. “I’m not Loki, I swear.”

“I know…or I think I do?” He rubs his eyes. “Everything is so muddled.”

“You know?”

“The scepter, it put something in my head. You were here for the tesseract too? You and…Stark? Something about…” His eyes clear suddenly and his gaze focuses on Steve. “You’re me from the future.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, thankful that this looks like it’s going to be much easier than he thought.

“Why are you here now then?”

“Returning what I took,” Steve bends down to flick open the stone case. He gestures at the orange mind stone, the last one left. “This is the stone that was inside the scepter.”

“Oh, did it work? Whatever you were trying to do?”

Steve weighs the question for a moment, strips away all the complicated layers of grief, anger and denial. “It did,” he confesses.

“That’s good. Wow, time travel, huh? Every time I think things can’t get any weirder…” There’s a wry twist to his mouth. “When did you come from? If you can tell me, that is.”

“2023,” he says, because what could it hurt to tell him now?

“Wow…Does it…does it get better?” There’s a tremble in his voice, and Steve thinks it could be hope and dread, or both.

“It does.”

“I don’t want it to,” his counterpart confesses in a whisper that Steve has to strain to hear.

“Then what do you want?” Steve asks, looking into eyes that are and are not his own. He remembers waking up, having just experienced loss worse than most people will ever live through in their lifetimes, but it isn’t over yet.

His younger self seems to collapse inward, a marionette with its strings cut. “I want to go home,” he says, and Steve watches the stoicism he remembers building to shore himself up, crumble for a moment.

Steve thinks about admitting “I will miss you, Tony”, about looking into bright brown eyes and saying “We won”. Thinks, _whatever it takes_.

“So do I,” Steve whispers, earning a quizzical look from the other man. “What if I told you I could send you back to 1945? You can pick up your life where you left off, no consequences.”

“I’d say that sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”

“No catch. You just have to leave now without talking to anybody. No goodbyes or explanations.”

“Why would you do this for me? You don’t want to go back yourself?”

“I know how you’re feeling, I’ve been there. I’ve made mistakes that I can never take back. This way we get what we both want,” Steve smiles, everything he wants suddenly feeling within his grasp. “There isn’t anything for me there anymore,” he adds.

His younger self looks sceptical, but after a quick outfit swap, Steve fixes the band on his wrist and puts in the date.

“This will take you back to New York in 1945. You can find Peggy, spend your life with her.”

“What are you going to do without your…thing?” his counterpart asks, holding up his wrist and waving his other hand in its direction.

“I’ve got things I need to do here.”

“Why would you want to relive the same things again?”

“No, I—I have to believe it can be better,” Steve says, and watches his counterpart disappear wearing the uniform Steve stole at Camp Lehigh, with the note Steve wrote about Bucky in its pocket.

“Hey Rogers, what are you doing, taking a nap?”

Steve turns to look over his shoulder, heart stuttering in his chest, and there, coming up behind him, is Tony Stark. A wonderfully alive Tony Stark who Steve hasn’t failed.

“Hey Stark,” Steve echoes, not even bothering to tamp down on the grin that wants to burst across his face. “Pretty sure I was promised shawarma. You’re not the only one who hasn’t tried it, you know.”

“Why do you think I came looking for you?” Tony asks, looking slightly confused by the enthusiasm Steve isn’t trying to hide. “Wait,” Tony says, and Steve feels his breath arrest in his chest—he couldn’t possibly know, could he? Maybe JARVIS was back online and Tony was coming to find out why there were two Steve’s— “is that a grey hair?” Tony asks, fingers catching in the strands on the side of Steve’s head, and for a moment Steve is back in the bunker at Lehigh with Tony’s hands in his hair, his mouth hot and desperate, his body wrapped around Steve’s.

“What do you know, maybe you aren’t perfect after all,” Tony says, part joking, part wondering, and Steve knows that if his younger self had been standing in his place, Steve would’ve responded harshly, not yet sure how to deal with all of his _Tony-ness_.

“I could’ve told you that, Tony,” Steve says, voice soft and wary of scaring Tony off. Tony startles anyway, pulling his hand back when he realises how closely their heads are bent together.

“Come on, Capsicle. If it’s shawarma you want, it’s shawarma you’ll get.”

“Well, it’s certainly a start.”


End file.
